Culture and Organization
Special Issue: Wabi-sabi (侘寂)

Wabi-sabi (侘寂): Imperfection, incompleteness and impermanence in organizational life

Following on from the highly successful combined SCOS/ACSCOS Conference held at Meiji University in Tokyo Japan from August 17-20 2018, we welcome submissions to a Special Issue of Culture and Organization on the subject of ‘Wabi-sabi (侘寂): Imperfection, incompleteness and impermanence in organizational life’.

Wabi-sabi is an approach to life based on accepting the transience and imperfection of the world. As a Japanese aesthetic derived from Buddhism, wabi-sabi embraces the wisdom that comes from perceiving beauty in impermanence and incompleteness. What might the flawed, faulty, and weathered have to do with formal organisations, obsessed as they seemingly are with continually striving for perfection? Could informal and emergent organisations represent the wabi-sabi ideal? Is perfection, as an antithesis of wabi-sabi, embedded in managerial efforts such as striving for continuous improvement, setting ‘stretch’ targets, managing the performance of ideal employees, promoting organizational cultures of excellence, and even the romanticized perfect bodies of employees? (Hardy and Thomas, 2015) Is it then the case that the managerial aesthetic of organizations is the antinomy of wabi-sabi? (Taylor, 2013).

The idea for this Special Issue is to explore how the wabi-sabi aesthetic can offer a counterpoint to the forms of idealization that dominate so much of managerial and organisational thinking. This is an exploration of how ideas from an ancient Eastern tradition might fruitfully be brought to bear on organisational issues, challenges and problems (Lowe, et al. 2015). Wabi-sabi as a theme explores the imperfect idea of a dividing crack between ‘the East’ and ‘the West’ that we hope the Special Issue will illuminate with the sort of effervescent creativity and fluid thinking that characterises Culture and Organization.

We invite submissions that consider any of the possibilities through which principles of transience and imperfection are present in, or can be made relevant to, organisational life. Central to this is how organisations have long been understood as exemplars of containment that can wilfully defy recognition of the importance of transience, flux, and fluidity. Such standpoints negate or minimise the significance of difference and undecidability leading to deleterious effects on organisational life such as overdetermined measurement systems and quality regimes. Undoing the desire for rock-solid certainty might just prove to be essential for developing ethical openness to others (Levinas, 2007; Pullen and Rhodes, 2014). Is it then possible that wabi-sabi’s emphasis on transience and imperfection offers a path appreciating ethical relations and challenging oppressive organizational regimes that violate humanity? Or could it lead to worse outcomes?

This Special Issue is an opportunity for scholars to engage with Asian concepts and ideas in a creative and inclusive way that has traditionally epitomised the ethos of Culture and Organization and SCOS conferences, and to carry on from a previous edition of Culture and Organization on the theme of ‘East is East’ (Vol. 21, Issue 5, 2015). More broadly we also welcome submissions on themes to do with impermanence, imperfection and incompleteness from other philosophical traditions, where these are relevant to organisational studies. Contributors may find inspiration from the following list of potential themes:

The desire for perfection in organisations, careers, and lives

Mindfulness, organising, managing, leadership, and followership

Western philosophy’s engagement with Eastern philosophy through, for example, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Irigaray, as well as Eastern philosophy’s engagement with Western philosophy, for example Nishida, Watsuji, and Yuasa, and its implications for organisations

This list is intended to be indicative only. Innovative interpretations of the call are encouraged.With its long tradition of interdisciplinary approaches, C&O invites papers that draw insights and approaches from across a range of social sciences and humanities.In addition to scholars working in management and organization studies we welcome contributions from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, politics, art history, communication, film, gender and cultural studies. We welcome papers from any disciplinary, paradigmatic or methodological perspective as long as they directly address the theme of wabi-sabi and organizational life.

Submission and informal enquiries

Please ensure that all submissions to the special issue are made via the ScholarOne Culture and Organization site. You will have to sign up for an account before you are able to submit a manuscript. Please ensure when you do submit that you select the relevant special issue (Volume 26, Issue 3) to direct your submission appropriately. If you experience any problems, please contact the editors of this issue.

Style and other instructions on manuscript preparation can be found at the journal’s website. Manuscript length should not exceed 8000 words, including appendices and supporting materials. Please also be aware that any images used in your submission must be your own, or where they are not, you must already have permission to reproduce them in an academic journal. You should make this explicit in the submitted manuscript.

Manuscripts must be submitted by February 1st 2019.

Prospective authors are invited to discuss manuscript ideas for the special issue with the guest editors before the deadline for submissions. .

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